Geography

Slightly larger than North Dakota, Syria lies at the eastern end of the
Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Lebanon and Israel on the west,
Turkey on the north, Iraq on the east, and Jordan on the south. Coastal
Syria is a narrow plain, in back of which is a range of coastal mountains,
and still farther inland a steppe area. In the east is the Syrian Desert
and in the south is the Jebel Druze Range. The highest point in Syria is
Mount Hermon (9,232 ft; 2,814 m) on the Lebanese border.

Government

Republic under a military regime since March 1963.

History

Ancient Syria was conquered by Egypt about 1500
B.C.
, and after that by Hebrews, Assyrians,
Chaldeans, Persians, and Alexander the Great of Macedonia. From 64
B.C.
until the Arab conquest in
A.D.
636, it was part of the Roman Empire except
during brief periods. The Arabs made it a trade center for their extensive
empire, but it suffered severely from the Mongol invasion in 1260 and fell
to the Ottoman Turks in 1516. Syria remained a Turkish province until
World War I.

A secret Anglo-French pact of 1916 put Syria in the French zone of
influence. The League of Nations gave France a mandate over Syria after
World War I, but the French were forced to put down several nationalist
uprisings. In 1930, France recognized Syria as an independent republic but
still subject to the mandate. After nationalist demonstrations in 1939,
the French high commissioner suspended the Syrian constitution. In 1941,
British and Free French forces invaded Syria to eliminate Vichy control.
During the rest of World War II, Syria was an Allied base. Again in 1945,
nationalist demonstrations broke into actual fighting, and British troops
had to restore order. Syrian forces met a series of reverses while
participating in the Arab invasion of Palestine in 1948. In 1958, Egypt
and Syria formed the United Arab Republic, with Gamal Abdel Nasser of
Egypt as president. However, Syria became independent again on Sept. 29,
1961, following a revolution.

In the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, Israel quickly vanquished the Syrian
army. Before acceding to the UN cease-fire, the Israeli forces took
control of the fortified Golan Heights. Syria joined Egypt in attacking
Israel in Oct. 1973 in the fourth Arab-Israeli War, but was pushed back
from initial successes on the Golan Heights and ended up losing more land.
However, in the settlement worked out by U.S. secretary of state Henry A.
Kissinger in 1974, the Syrians recovered all the territory lost in
1973.

In the mid-1970s Syria sent some 20,000 troops to support Muslim
Lebanese in their armed conflict with Christian militants supported by
Israel during the civil war in Lebanon. Syrian troops frequently clashed
with Israeli troops during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and remained
thereafter as occupiers of large portions of Lebanon.